Read Online A Witch Before Dying: A Wishcraft Mystery by Heather Blake - Free Book Online

magical-looking turret. In the daylight, its fanciful paint job really stood out as something special. With its purples, whites, and blues, the house often had tourists using it as a backdrop for vacation photos.
    I’d just crossed the street and was sprinting for the gate leading to the house’s back door when the shadowy figure of a man came stumbling off the Enchanted Trail, hurdled over the back fence behind the house, got caught on a picket, and ended up falling through the shrubs. He lay sprawled, unmoving, five feet in front of me.
    Missy barked and wriggled until I couldn’t hold on to her anymore. I set her down and she immediately ran tothe prone form. I followed and dropped down on the ground. “Evan!” I cried.
    Evan Sullivan, Starla’s twin brother, groaned and rolled over. A huge red knot was forming on his head. “Darcy?”
    I heard flapping and was relieved when Archie came in for a landing. In addition to being a scarlet macaw, he was one of the village’s familiars. By day, he entertained the tourists passing by his cage in the yard. By night, he was the Elder’s right-hand man. Bird. Whatever. Technically, he’d been dead for over a hundred years, but his spirit lived on in the macaw form—which was an appropriate choice considering how much he enjoyed hearing himself talk. Once upon a time, he was a London theater actor, and his favorite game to play with me was Name That Movie Quote. We’d spent many hours passing time trying to stump each other.
    “‘Whatever happens tonight, I will never, ever, ever speak a word of it,’” he quoted.
    “Now is not the time for movie trivia,” I said, slapping Evan’s face, trying to get him to focus.
    “Now, now,” Archie said in a clipped tone. He sounded a lot like a British James Earl Jones. “If you don’t know the answer, you just have to say so.”
    I didn’t want to admit I had no idea what movie that line was from.
    “
The
Hangover
,” Archie supplied. There was a smug lilt to his voice.
    I glanced at him. “You’ve seen
The
Hangover
?”
    “You haven’t?”
    “Doesn’t seem like your standard fare,” I said.
    “I’m full of surprises,” he said, ruffling his feathers to shoo Missy away from licking him. “As are you, apparently. What did you do to poor Evan?” The white rings around his eyes practically glowed in the dark.
    So caught up in the image of Archie watching such aguy flick, I’d momentarily forgotten about Evan. Most days, I could find him at the Gingerbread Shack, his bakery. With his clean-cut ginger-blond hair and sparkly blue eyes, he was adorable. But not my type. Nor was I his type—he was gay. We bonded over mini cupcakes and how handsome we both thought Nick Sawyer was.
    Over the past few months, Evan had become one of my closest friends. My stomach was in knots, seeing him this way. “Are you okay to move?”
    Missy ran circles around us, but she wasn’t barking. In fact, she looked like she wanted to play.
    Evan struggled to sit up. He moaned and held his head. “What happened?”
    “I was going to ask you the same thing,” I said.
    He winced as his fingers palpated a giant goose egg rising above his temple. “I—I’d been visiting Ve,” he said. “She wanted some last-minute changes to her wedding cake, so I came over with some options.”
    “And they were so bad she bopped you on the head?” Archie asked.
    Evan made a sour face at the bird.
    I examined the knot on Evan’s head. It looked painful. “Go on,” I said.
    “When I was leaving, I thought I saw someone hiding in the woods, watching your house.”
    I stiffened. “The Peeper Creeper?” I asked.
    “The who?” Evan said.
    “The neighborhood Peeping Tom,” I said. “There have been a couple of sightings tonight.”
    “I’m not sure. When I called out, the person took off. I gave chase, but the next thing I knew I was coming to on the ground in the woods. Whoever it was must have knocked me out somehow.”
    Archie whistled